This presentation examines the powerful role of visual culture in the expression of cultural assumptions about the body, healthcare and related practices. It comes at the end of a long-term Wellcome Trust funded project that has brought together 40 scholars from seven different countries around the world in the study of more than 1,400 images (http://wellcomeimages.org, search on "Vivienne Lo").

During the seminar we will look at some of the results of the project and the analyses they permit. I will begin with my own study of medical artefacts and illustrations from the Han dynasty during the period of the formation of a classical tradition. Medical images were deployed at different times in different ways, and for a number of identifiable purposes. They allow us to analyse the text-image relationship, their role in performative contexts or as decorative embellishment and curiosity. A key focus will be the transmission and adaption of illustrations and the reception of Chinese medical illustrations in neighbouring empires, in central Asia, in European medical contexts and in cyberspace.